People who only studied all their lives

[The Brain]

Hire her if she has performed so far. Diversity can only do you good I think.

[Martim Silva]

Well, all things pondered, I am now trying to get more information about her past and intentions.

I have asked the section head (the guy who did the review is on vacation atm) to conduct interviews with the interns [all of them; I don't want to seem to be favouring anyone] as to why they want to join us and their long term prospects.

I did specify her as unusual, so I told him to see if he can get her to give us more background on her.

(I suppose he will take some days to go around the five interns. We will be keeping two, btw)

As noted, the issue with her is not merely a matter of age - we hire plenty of people that age and older every year. But they all have had careers and we know who we hire [and not for junior jobs]. The issue is that she reached 34 with *nothing* to show for. Which raises questions.

Like MadImmortalMan said, the main one is the risk that she was merely afraid/not wanting to work and delayed her entry into the workforce as much as possible, using her studies as an excuse and just leeching from her parents. That would mean such a person could be too used to having a comfortable life and would not adapt well to the needs of the industry (such as having too much control over her schedule, or being able to 'skip' classes whenever she wanted, or of not really suffering consequences if she made serious errors, etc).

If her performance review said that she paid little attention/arrived late too often/slept at her desk [we once had an intern who did this], I wouldn't even had made this thread - she'd just be sent packing at the end of the month and nothing else. But the appraisal said otherwise, so I readjusted my preset ideas and am willing to give her a chance, if I can get a better indication she is not in this for some odd reason [like just staying for a year to afford a PhD or so].

Another issue is that, at her age, people have at least 10 productive years behing them already. Why hasn't she held proper Academic jobs while she took her postgraduation and Masters? With her qualifications, she could already be a teacher at a University. Even the lowest post-associate teachers of those make about... seven times what she'll make it here, so the motive why she chose us is dodgy. Did she fail to connect to people while studying? Or was it something else?

A third problem is that we can't really tell if she had previous side job while studying. Over here, McJobs and other nonpermanent positions carry a heavy social stigma, so people just delete those from their CVs.

The fourth issue is indeed about her would-be superiors. I can force her hiring, but I do not want to upset them. They are the people who help me run the department, and having several subordinates upset with your decisons is a very bad career move  (middle managers are incredibly powerful in that they can actually veto many decisions just by 'finding' complications, having delays, communications problems... if more than one join forces, they are daunting). Managing managers is actually the hardest part of managing.

Also, I do try to think of us as a team - so if I go ahead with this I will have to work with them and their problems even more than they will have to work with her and her possible issues.

(besides, while last year the head of our brokerage was the convenient scapegoat for all because his unit was responsible for about 80% of our losses, so far this year he is running stellar numbers. Which means I cannot afford to have an underperforming department).

Answers:

Yi, in Portugal if a worker becomes part of the staff then they become impossible to fire unless they agree to it. The law forbids firings by the employer (what some companies do is send pink slips and pray that the employee doesn't know the Law and actually believes he/she has been fired. I don't do that kind of shit.)

Caliga, she is plain-looking. So much so that I even wonder if, should I look 'plain-looking' up I wouldn't find a photo of her.

IKK, for obvious reasons I will not say who we are (you might be able to identify me), but I can tell you that you have been seen us on the news a lot lately. WAY too much, if you ask me. But at least I'm better than my friends at BPN*. When we have dinner meetings, I now say that they work for a gardening company, so that people at the restaurant don't give us angry looks. 

* BPN is a portuguese bank which went under in November '08 because the credit crunch revealed that its CEO robbed billions from it. To prevent the collapse of the national financial system, our goverment nationalized it at a grievous cost to the taxpayers.

[DGuller]

Yi, in Portugal if a worker becomes part of the staff then they become impossible to fire unless they agree to it. The law forbids firings by the employer (what some companies do is send pink slips and pray that the employee doesn't know the Law and actually believes he/she has been fired. I don't do that kind of shit.)

Wow, WTF? 

[garbon]

Yi, in Portugal if a worker becomes part of the staff then they become impossible to fire unless they agree to it. The law forbids firings by the employer (what some companies do is send pink slips and pray that the employee doesn't know the Law and actually believes he/she has been fired. I don't do that kind of shit.)

Wow, WTF? 

And they say Portugal is a real country.

[Darth Wagtaros]

Can't fire someone for incompetence or being a total fuckup?  This is just the kind of socialism that the US is headed for with Obama.  Let's learn something from our Euro-commie friends and plan for a 2012 regime change here in the US.

[CountDeMoney]

Well, all things pondered, I am now trying to get more information about her past and intentions.

Her past and intentions?  She's an applicant for a job, not a double agent.

Douchebag.

[garbon]

Let's learn something from our Euro-commie friends and plan for a 2012 regime change here in the US.

[Darth Wagtaros]

THe tree of liberty must occasionally be refreshed by the blood of Jaron.

[garbon]

Or perhaps:



Paglia/Palin '12

[Ed Anger]

This thread makes me all warm inside.

Still warm.

[Martim Silva]

Her past and intentions?  She's an applicant for a job, not a double agent.

You reminded me that, early this decade (pre-9/11), we did end up hiring a double agent.

We only started to notice it when some of our stuff was sent to our clients with different texts that said the exact opposite of what we wanted to say. The first time we thought there had been a major goof, the second time it was too weird. We got lots of complaints.

Our folks kept saying they never wrote those texts [and they kept the originals to prove it], and their chiefs confirmed that they had absolutely not overseen anything of the sort that was sent out.

We eventually got to the conclusion that we had a saboteur amongst us. I cannot describe the feeling.

The solution at the time was to secretly install surveillance cameras that covered all the angles of the vital rooms at all hours. We eventually spotted that one of our latest employees (he was with us for about one year now) managed to slip into certain computers when nobody was watching - and dammit, there should have been somebody paying any attention - and occasionally totally changed a text. He was working for our rivals.

And to top it off, we had to pay him well to make him leave, since we could not make the incident public (it would lead to a major loss of trust amongst our clients). Hugely embarrassing and career-wrecking.

So, now you gave me something else to worry about. Our rivals would not use someone that would attract attentions... or would they? 

Can't fire someone for incompetence or being a total fuckup?

Not really. Last year the government created a clause that allows firing for "inability to adjust" to new technologies, but for it to work basically the employee needs to totally refuse to work with computers... if he/she even shows willingness to learn, then firing is out of the question.

There are four motives that an employer can use to fire:

a) go bust for good. Then the employees will have no more jobs.

b) Make a collective firing (over 5 people at a time), but you MUST be able to prove that you need to do it to remain afloat. Otherwise, the firings are nullified.

c) Eliminate that job altogether. But you must then prove that the employee cannot/will not take up other functions anywhere else in the firm. And you cannot hire somebody for a position that even resembles the one you eliminated for a whole year, else you'll be fined.

d) Prove that he/she is a threat, either physical or to the company's finances. To do that, you need to move a disciplinary procedure and prove three different instances where the person did what he/she is accused of. And every accusation has to have at least three different witnesses to it [i.e. it's impossible and you might as well offer a large severance pay to make the employee accept to leave and start collecting unemployment subsidy].

To top it off, the labour courts are the only part of the judicial system which isn't corrupted in this damn country and actually do their work swiftly. The number of cases won by companies against their employees in the last 35 years is exactly zero.

As a result, often most foreign companies find it easier to just secretly flee the country overnight and leave their employees wondering what happened to the buildings when they arrive to work on monday...

[The Brain]

Do we have a credible source as well?

[Darth Wagtaros]

Is this Portugul or is it hell?  Damn.

[I Killed Kenny]

IKK, for obvious reasons I will not say who we are (you might be able to identify me), but I can tell you that you have been seen us on the news a lot lately. WAY too much, if you ask me. But at least I'm better than my friends at BPN*. When we have dinner meetings, I now say that they work for a gardening company, so that people at the restaurant don't give us angry looks. 

* BPN is a portuguese bank which went under in November '08 because the credit crunch revealed that its CEO robbed billions from it. To prevent the collapse of the national financial system, our goverment nationalized it at a grievous cost to the taxpayers.

If you are not worse than BPN you can't be BPP, so the only shitty-marketing bank is BCP...

Or aren't you in banking?